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Fine Ar
tsLiteraturePublic ServiceScience NCAWARDS2016esse quam videriThe North Carolina Awards were instituted in 1961 by the North Carolina General Assembly. The Awards have been given annually since 1964 to citizens who have distinguished themselves and obtained notable accomplishments in the fields of fine arts, literature, public service and science. It is the highest civilian honor the Governor and the State of North Carolina can bestow.
The AwardJudi K. Grainger, Chairwoman
The Honorable James P. Cain
Phillip J. Kirk, Jr.
Lenard D. Moore
The Honorable Robert F. Orr
The 2016 North Carolina
Awards CommitteeTonight we celebrate the finest in North Carolina.
North Carolina has a rich history in the arts, sciences and in public service. This year’s North Carolina Award recipients join more than 50 years of individual winners who have used their talents to benefit and improve the lives of their fellow citizens. We highlight their overall contributions to advancing the quality of life in North Carolina.
Their lives personify the motto that surrounds the North Carolina medal – “Achievement is Man’s Mark of Greatness.” However, their greatest gift may be the inspiration they have given others to pursue excellence in their daily lives.
We are thankful for their leadership, creativity and innovative efforts. Join me in saluting this year’s North Carolina Award winners.
Message from the Governor52nd Annual North Carolina Awards
September 22, 2016
Welcome Secretary Susan Kluttz
NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources
Invocation Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest
Color Guard NC State Parks Honor Guard
Pledge of Allegiance Secretary Cornell Wilson, Jr.
NC Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs
Retired Major General US Marine Corps
“The Star-Spangled Banner” Dominic Thomas
Shaw University
Dinner
North Carolina Toast Justice Barbara Jackson
North Carolina Supreme Court
Recognition of Former Award Recipients Judi Grainger, Chair
2016 NC Awards Committee
Introduction Secretary Susan Kluttz
NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources
Remarks and Presentation of Awards Governor Pat McCrory
Closing Remarks Governor Pat McCrory
“God Bless America” Katherine "KK" Fritsch
St. David’s School
Master of Ceremonies for the evening is Dr. Kevin Cherry, Deputy Secretary of
Archives, History and Parks, NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
ProgramNorth Carolina
Awards Recipients
•Literature
Joseph Bathanti
A poet is often said to be of service to his muse. Joseph Bathanti, award-winning poet and teacher for 40 years, has gone beyond to be of service to his fellow man. No cloister or ivory tower for him, he has read his work and conducted workshops in prisons, training schools, battered women’s shelters, day care centers, nursing homes, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, barns, gyms, depots and fish camps. For his dedication to the power of language, in and out of the classroom, Joseph Bathanti receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Literature.
Perhaps this should not be a surprise, since his mission was echoed in the name of the group that brought Bathanti to North Carolina: Volunteers in Service to America. VISTA assigned Bathanti in 1976 to work for 14 months for the North Carolina Department of Correction, at the prison in Huntersville. There he met his wife Joan, today the mother of their two sons Beckett and Jacob. But it was his interaction with the incarcerated that shaped his lifelong commitment to allow people to tell their stories through poetry and other forms of writing. The experience also steeled his resolve for social justice and forged his personal opposition to the death penalty.
Born in Pittsburgh to a steelworker and a seamstress, young Bathanti completed undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Pittsburgh, in time adding an MFA at Warren Wilson College. There followed a succession of teaching posts across the state, at St. Andrews Presbyterian University and at community colleges in Charlotte, Polkton, Marion and Statesville. In 2001 he assumed his present post as professor of creative writing at Appalachian State University.
His creative work has included ten volumes of poetry (the latest, The 13th Sunday After Pentecost, appeared from LSU Press this year), three novels, and a short story collection. Twice he has received the Roanoke-Chowan Award for the year’s best book of poetry by a North Carolinian. In recognition of his achievements and professional standing he was named Poet Laureate of North Carolina in 2012, serving for two years. A fellow North Carolina writer has saluted him: “He knows us, all of us, white collar, blue collar, black and white, rural and urban.”
His latest play is Deployed, a readers theater project based on the recollections of military veterans. As an extension of that work, in which he is as deeply invested as he has been for years in the work of prisoners, Bathanti recently has assumed the post of writer-in-residence at the Veterans Administration hospital in Asheville. His work with former service members with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a measure of his spirit of selflessness and compassion.
Bathanti’s most recent work of nonfiction is entitled Half of What I Say is Meaningless, a nod to Kahlil Gibran and to the Beatles’ song “Julia.” Friends, readers, and others who have had their lives touched by his work will wholeheartedly disagree.
Bathanti and his wife Joan live in Vilas and have two sons.Science
Dr. Linda S. Birnbaum
It all started with rats. A desire to understand the effect of thyroid hormones on brain development led the 14-year-old Birnbaum to act. She asked a drug company near her Teaneck, New Jersey home for rats, cages, food and thyroid hormones for a study. She completed her research with 40 rats, then won the New Jersey State Science Fair. She attended a national youth conference in Chicago and was written up in Life magazine in 1961. So began a storied career from which she never looked back. For ground-breaking work in environmental science, mentoring next generation researchers, and concern for protecting citizens from environmental hazards, Linda Birnbaum receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Science.
Birnbaum has become an internationally recognized expert in the field of environmental health and toxicology. Throughout her career she has investigated the impacts of chemicals on human health including dioxin, asbestos, flame retardants and Agent Orange. Her work has led to reductions in their use and impacted populations worldwide.
Ever an overachiever, Birnbaum studied at the University of Rochester and graduated in three years as a biology major so that she could wed her husband David. Both graduated Phi Beta Kappa. They attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her doctorate in microbiology in 1972. Even in a male dominated field, she was able to combine marriage, postdoctoral studies and starting a family enabled by a flexible work schedule, and achieved some semblance of work-life balance. Following the career moves of her mathematician husband led her to various labs studying genetics and aging, then entry into the world of toxicology through PCBs and dioxin. At this point she decided her husband should follow her career.
Upon visiting her sister and brother-in-law in Research Triangle Park, she discovered the research hub of Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology. She decided this was where she wanted to be and landed a senior fellowship with the National Toxicology Program at NIEHS in 1979. She next worked at EPA as director of toxicology.
From that auspicious start, in 2009 Linda Birnbaum became the first woman and the first toxicologist to serve as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Only the RTP unit is located outside the Washington, DC area, and it is known as the “crown jewel” of scientific enterprise in North Carolina. NIEHS science underlies regulatory decision making in the U.S. and abroad.
Birnbaum is author or co-author of more than 900 articles, abstracts, book chapters and reports, and has been honored by many scientific professional organizations. She has studied the effect of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans and asbestos on miners in Montana. Birnbaum has also worked with American Indian tribes in North Carolina, Alaska and Arizona.
The Office of Science and Education Diversity was created by Birnbaum at NIEHS and is one of several initiatives she enacted to engage students in science, technology, engineering and math careers. She maintains relationships with the many past NIEHS researchers and also advances preventive health care through town hall meetings in diverse communities. She believes information will lead to better decision making and better public health.
Birnbaum and her husband David live in Chapel Hill and are the parents of three children and have three grandchildren.Public Service
Robert J. Brown
“A man is known by the company he keeps,” according to one of the better known Aesop’s Fables. For Robert Brown, that company has been a widely disparate group of notables, from Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Richard Nixon, Sammy Davis Jr. to Stedman Graham. A high achiever in the field of public relations, Brown has extended his hand since the 1950s to those needing a step up, to those looking to make a connection, to those wishing to increase their own or their institution’s fortunes. For over a half-century of work as a mediator, counselor and facilitator Robert J. Brown receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Public Service.
A native and lifelong resident of High Point, Brown attended William Penn High School (a few years after jazz saxophonist John Coltrane), North Carolina A& T State University, and Virginia Union University. His working life began in 1956, when he started a two-year stint as a policeman in his hometown. From there he commenced work as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, part of the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1960 Brown founded B&C Associates, in time advising major corporations such as AutoNation, General Motors, Kimberly Clark, Johnson Wax, F. W. Woolworth, Sara Lee and Nabisco. He also served as a member of the corporate plans board of Carl Byoir and Associates, which for many years was the largest public relations firm in the world.
In 1968 he took leave from his company to serve as Special Assistant to newly-elected President Richard M. Nixon. In the White House his duties included responsibility for community relations, civil rights and emergency preparedness. Brown developed the U.S. Minority Business Enterprise Program and chaired the White House Task Force on Small Towns. Shortly before teaming with President Nixon, Brown, who had traveled with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., advised the civil rights leader’s widow Coretta Scott King after her husband’s assassination, on setting up an office. Brown also worked closely with Whitney Young of the National Urban League.
A highlight of Brown’s life came on May 8, 1987, when he met for two hours with Nelson Mandela, incarcerated at that time in Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, South Africa. To that point, Mandela’s visitors had been very few, principally his wife Winnie and family members. Subsequently, Brown assisted the Mandelas in gaining admission for their daughter and son-in-law to Boston University, where Brown was a trustee. Brown’s many visits to Africa led him to found in 1993 BookSmart Foundation, which since has distributed over five million books to South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and other nations.
Robert Brown has served many schools as trustee, among them Boston University, Livingstone College, NC Central University, Guilford College, and Winston-Salem State University. In addition, he has served on the UNC Board of Governors and was president of the North Carolina Railroad Company from 1985 to 1990. He is the recipient of twelve honorary doctorates.
Brown and his wife Lavern live in High Point. Public Service
James C. Gardner
Known for his courage and conviction in his varied pursuits in business, politics and public service, Jim Gardner has worn many hats in his lifetime. From launching the Hardee’s hamburger chain to bringing professional basketball to North Carolina to expanding the two-party political system in eastern NC to spearheading campaigns against drugs and underage drinking, Gardner’s successes and accomplishments are many. For more than 50 years of dedication to the people of our state, James C. Gardner receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Public Service.
After attending NC State University and serving in the U.S. Army, Gardner returned home to Rocky Mount to join his father’s business, Gardner Dairy Products. In 1961, Gardner and his friend Leonard Rawls joined Wilber Hardee to launch Hardee’s, a successful hamburger restaurant. The venture took off and within a few years Gardner was executive vice president of Hardee’s Food Systems. As a local leader, he required his executives to live in Rocky Mount, building hometown pride and community spirit.
Inspired by a speech by Senator Barry Goldwater, Gardner changed his party affiliation to Republican in a heavily Democratic area and almost immediately was tapped to be the Nash County party chairman. He was named chairman of the state Republican Party the following year. Gardner first made a splash when he ran for Congress in 1964, and nearly defeated the 30-year Democratic incumbent. In the next election, Gardner was elected to represent the Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House with a shocking 13-point margin of victory, foreshadowing the resurgence of the Grand Old Party in North Carolina.
In 1988, Gardner became lieutenant governor, the first Republican to be elected to the office in the twentieth century. A lifelong opponent of drug and alcohol abuse, as lieutenant governor, he led Gov. Jim Martin’s North Carolina Drug Cabinet. Gardner has been called one of the “Four Jims” of the North Carolina Republican establishment, the others being former Governors Holshouser and Martin and former U.S. Sen. Jim Broyhill.
An adventuresome businessman, Gardner purchased the franchise rights of the Houston Mavericks, an American Basketball Association team, and brought professional basketball to North Carolina in 1969 and called them the Carolina Cougars. The Cougars were based in Greensboro, but played at various arenas around the state. Their roster was filled with former North Carolina college players and stars, delighting fans. Gardner also served as President and Commissioner of the American Basketball League.
In 2005, Gardner was inducted into the Twin County Museum and Hall of Fame whose mission is ‘to celebrate the history, culture, people, and accomplishments of Nash and Edgecombe Counties.’ Gardner has been named Tarheel of the Week and Outstanding Young Man of the South. In 2013, he served as master of ceremonies during Governor Pat McCrory’s inauguration.
As a respected elder statesman, Gardner was the ideal choice of Governor McCrory to oversee the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission in 2013. He continues to lead the commission with vision and integrity. He actively directs the bold and provocative “Talk it Out” campaign, designed to encourage parents to talk with their children about the dangers of drinking.
Jim Gardner and his wife Marie live in Rocky Mount. They have three children and nine grandchildren.Science
Dr. Paul L. Modrich
Paul Modrich was born in 1946 in Raton, New Mexico. He was educated in the local schools as well as in the natural world that surrounded him in childhood. In 1963 his father, a high school biology teacher, told his son that he “should learn about this DNA stuff.” Modrich went on to study biology at MIT, and then to Stanford for his Ph.D. in biochemistry. His postdoctoral study of enzymes and their effects on DNA was completed at Harvard. In 1976 Modrich arrived at Duke University, where he remains the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry. In 1994 he became an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His publications and career honors are many.
The study of DNA was new science when Modrich entered college. Although discovered by a French researcher in the late 1860s, it was nearly 100 years later in 1950 that American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick concluded that DNA was a three-dimensional double helix. As an undergraduate, Modrich first studied the genetics of viruses that infect bacteria. He showed that ligase is essential for the microbe Escherichia coli. The enzyme seal breaks that occur in one strand of the double helix is essential for DNA replication, repair and recombination.
DNA replication is very accurate, but about one mistake occurs for every 10 million DNA copies. Modrich identified the proteins at work in what is called the mismatch repair (MMR) system, a proofreading mechanism in DNA that reduces the errors by a factor of a thousand. In healthy cells, approximately one mutation occurs per cell division. Without MMR the number increases to about 1,000. This research has helped understand the workings of colon cancer and has implications for many other tumors and diseases.
Modrich counts many friends in the scientific world, including co-recipient Aziz Sancar, with whom he occasionally shares research.
Modrich and his wife, Vickers Burdett, live in rural Orange County with their dog Dover. They have two grown children.
As cells divide, an organism’s DNA is copied over and over again. During the process, DNA is subjected to damaging radiation and reactive molecules which can cause random errors in replication. Cells however, maintain a “tool box” for repairing themselves, keeping bacteria and humans, alike, from descending into chemical instability. For their ground-breaking work in mapping and explaining how a cell repairs its DNA in order to prevent errors in genetic information, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar receive the 2016 North Carolina Award for Science.Science
Dr. Aziz Sancar
Aziz Sancar was born in 1946 in Savur, Turkey. Although his parents were illiterate, they emphasized education. He excelled in school and in soccer, but chose to focus on school. He studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Istanbul University and was a doctor for a year and a half before coming to the United States on scholarship to study biochemistry at Johns Hopkins University. He was accepted at the University of Texas at Dallas and earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology. He later came to UNC-Chapel Hill, and is the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Sancar’s study in Texas opened for him new research in the universe of DNA repair. He found that bacteria recovered from deadly doses of ultraviolet radiation when exposed to blue light. Sancar in 1976 cloned the gene for the enzyme photolyase, which repairs the UV damaged DNA in bacteria. He was the first scientist east of the Rocky Mountains to clone a gene. He also competed for lab time with fellow doctoral student Gwendolyn Boles, whom he eventually married. While a lab technician at Yale University’s School of Medicine, he deciphered the mechanism of another DNA enzyme system called nucleotide excision repair.
UNC was the only school to offer Sancar a postdoctoral position and also offer a position to his wife. In his lab his ideas on excision repair were validated. Aside from his work in DNA repair, Sancar has also identified one of four genes that control a mammal’s circadian, or biological, clock.
Sancar’s current work seeks to further understand excision repair and define connections between DNA excision repair, DNA damage checkpoints and the circadian clock. It has implications for a host of ills and won him many professional honors.
In 2009 Sancar and his wife launched the Aziz and Gwen Sancar Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes Turkish culture and supports Turkish students in the United States. He is deeply devoted to mentoring students from his homeland, the United States and other nations.
Although their research areas are different, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar have had a profound impact on genetic research.
Sancar and his wife Gwen live in Chapel Hill.
Modrich and Sancar, together with their colleague Tomas Lindahl of Cancer Research UK’s Clare Laboratory, received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The three scientists discovered how replication errors in DNA, caused by exposure to toxic substances such as ultraviolet radiation and cigarette smoke, are repaired. Their work has also shown that when the repair systems fail, a person may get cancer. Sir Martyn Poliakoff, vice president of the Royal Society said of the research, “Understanding the ways in which DNA repairs itself is fundamental to our understanding of inherited genetic disorders and of diseases like cancer.”Fine Arts
Dr. Assad Meymandi
Dr. Assad Meymandi, psychiatrist, scholar, polymath and patriot, has been generous with his gifts. A century ago, captains of industry such as Rockefeller and Carnegie set the philanthropic model. Today, Raleigh has its own public-spirited practitioner of the art of charitable giving. For the transformative roles he has played for the North Carolina Symphony and North Carolina Museum of Art, coupled with his resolute advocacy for the arts and humanities, Assad Meymandi receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Fine Arts.
Meymandi’s story begins in Kerman, Persia (present-day Iran), where his mother Kobra inculcated in her youngest of nine children an appreciation for music, literature and culture. By the age of five, Meymandi spoke Farsi, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic – the language of Jesus. The budding scholar attended the French Jesuit school in Tehran. He came to America in 1955 to study medicine. He completed premed at Arizona State University in 1958 and received his Doctor of Medicine degree (MD) from George Washington University in 1962. After his internship, Meymandi received his psychiatric residency training at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh from 1963 to 1966. He then served as a psychiatrist-director at Cumberland County Mental Health Center. Next, he was vice-chief, then chief of staff at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville. In time, he also acquired doctorates in biochemistry and philosophy, along with several honorary Doctorate of Science degrees, the latest in 2015. He holds an adjunct professorship of psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine, where in 2003 he endowed the Dr. Assad Meymandi Distinguished Chair of Psychiatry.
Raleigh has been the beneficiary of much of Dr. Meymandi’s philanthropy. Indeed, he dreams of transforming the city into a modern version of sixteenth-century Florence – a center for art, music, literature and learning. Toward that end, he funded the state-of-the-art, 1,800-seat concert hall that serves the North Carolina Symphony and bears his mother’s name. At the North Carolina Museum of Art, he established the Meymandi Exhibition Center, the Museum’s largest special exhibition space, named for his father. One dream remains, to build an opera house as a home for the NC Opera on the grounds of the former Dix Hospital where he began his career a half-century ago. He has also pledged funding toward converting this land into a city park.
In Iran, Meymandi funded an elementary school and contributed funding to the Rudaki Symphony Hall in Tehran. At the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, he funded a fellowship to integrate study of the humanities with basic sciences. It brings together leaders in the arts and sciences, such as E.O. Wilson and Oliver Sacks, and Nobel Laureates including Wole Soyinka and Sir Paul Nurse. In memory of his late wife, Meymandi established the Patricia Schmidt Meymandi Nursing Scholarship. At St. Mary’s School, he has sponsored music programs and at Cherry Hill in Warren County, an annual concert.
Meymandi is a blogger, sharing with friends his “Monday Musings.” On July 4, 2015, he wrote, “There is no place on earth like America, where the beacon of freedom continues to shine, where the flame of liberty continues to illuminate the landscape of humanity, where the rule of law and not the whim of Shahs, Mullahs and dictators is supreme. God Bless America.”
Assad Meymandi is the father of four children and has five grandchildren. He and his wife Emily live in Raleigh. Past Recipients
2015
Anthony S. Abbott–Literature
Anthony Atala, MD–Science
Senator James T. Broyhill–Public Service
A. Everette James, Jr., MD–Fine Arts
Howard N. Lee–Public Service
Patricia McBride–Fine Arts
2014
Betsy Bennett–Public Service
Robert A. Ingram–Public Service
Lenard D. Moore–Literature
Jagdish (Jay) Narayan–Science
Alan Shapiro–Literature
Ira David Wood III–Fine Arts
2013
Myron S. Cohen–Science
John E. Cram–Fine Arts
John M. H. Hart Jr.–Literature
Phillip J. Kirk Jr.–Public Service
John Harding Lucas–Public Service
Walt Wolfram–Public Service
2012
B. Jayant Baliga–Science
Gary Neil Carden–Literature
Lou Donaldson–Fine Arts
Janice H. Faulkner–Public Service
Bonnie McElveen-Hunter–Public Service
Thomas H. Sayre–Fine Arts
2011
Charles E. Hamner–Public Service
H. Martin Lancaster–Public Service
Trudy F. C. Mackay–Science
Branford Marsalis–Fine Arts
Ron Rash–Literature
Vollis Simpson–Fine Arts
2010
F. Ivy Carroll–Science
Robert W. Ebendorf–Fine Arts
R. Michael Leonard–Public Service
Margaret S. “Tog” Newman–Public Service
Donald Sultan–Fine Arts
Carole Boston Weatherford–Literature
2009
Gerald W. Barrax–Literature
Dr. Joseph M. DeSimone–Science
Betty Ray McCain–Public Service
Hugh L. McColl, Jr.–Public Service
Mark Peiser–Fine Arts
Bo Thorp–Fine Arts
2008
Maurice S. Brookhart–Science
Charles Frazier–Literature
Gerald Freedman–Fine Arts
Ann Goodnight–Public Service
Margaret Maron–Literature
James G. Martin–Public Service
Alexander M. Rivera, Jr.–Fine Arts
Dean Smith–Public Service
Fred and Alice Stanback–Public Service
2007
Viney P. Aneja–Science
Jerry C. Cashion–Public Service
Jan Davidson–Fine Arts
Rosemary Harris Ehle–Fine Arts
Henry E. Frye–Public Service
William E. Leuchtenburg–Literature
Burley B. Mitchell, Jr.–Public Service
Charlie Rose–Public Service
Darrel W. Stafford–Science
2006
Thomas K. Hearn, Jr.–Public Service
James E. Holshouser, Jr.–Public Service
Michael Fleming Parker–Literature
Roy Parker, Jr.–Public Service
Charles A. Sanders–Science
William T. Williams–Fine Arts
Emily Herring Wilson–Literature
2005
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr.–Public Service
Betty Debnam Hunt–Public Service
Randall Kenan–Literature
Thomas Willis Lambeth–Public Service
Bland Simpson–Fine Arts
Mansukh C. Wani–Science
2004
Voit Gilmore–Public Service
Walter J. Harrelson–Literature
William Ivey long–Fine Arts
Elizabeth Matheson–Fine Arts
Penelope Niven–Literature
LeRoy T. Walker–Public Service
Annie Louise Wilkerson–Science
2003
Etta Baker–Fine Arts
Jaki Shelton Green–Literature
Frank Borden Hanes–Public Service
James Baxter Hunt, Jr.–Public Service
Mary Ann Scherr–Fine Arts
William Thornton–Science
2002
William G. Anlyan–Science
Cynthia Bringle–Fine Arts
Julius L. Chambers–Public Service
Martha Nell Hardy–Fine Arts
H.G. Jones–Public Service
Romulus Linney–Literature
Edwin Graves Wilson–Public Service
2001
Kathryn Stripling Byer–Literature
W.W. Finlator–Public Service
Robert B. Jordan, III–Public Service
Royce W. Murray–Science
Arthur Smith–Fine Arts
Shelby Stephenson–Literature2000
Henry Bowers–Public Service
Harlan E. Boyles–Public Service
S. Tucker Cooke–Fine Arts
William T. Fletcher–Science
James F. Goodmon–Public Service
William S. Powell–Literature
1999
Frank Arthur Daniels, Jr.–Public Service
Julia Jones Daniels–Public Service
Knut Schmidt-Nielsen–Science
Robert G. Parr–Science
Allan Gurganus–Literature
Jill McCorkle–Literature
Frank L. Horton–Fine Arts
Herb Jackson–Fine Arts
Henry H. Shelton–Public Service
1998
L. Richardson Preyer–Public Service
Emily Harris Preyer–Public Service
Kaye Gibbons–Literature
Robert W. Gray–Fine Arts
Martin Rodbell–Science
Marvin Saltzman–Fine Arts
James V. Taylor–Fine Arts
1997
Thomas S. Kenan, III–Public Service
M. Mellanay Delhom–Fine Arts
Robert Ian Bruck–Science
Elna B. Spaulding–Public Service
Clyde Edgerton–Literature
1996
Robert W. Scott–Public Service
Martha Clampitt McKay–Public Service
John L. Sanders–Public Service
Betty Adcock–Literature
Joseph S. Pagano–Science
Joanne M. Bath–Fine Arts
1995
Banks C. Talley, Jr.–Public Service
John S. Mayo–Science
John Biggers–Fine Arts
Clyde Hutchison, III–Science
James Applewhite–Literature
Kenneth Noland–Fine Arts
1994
Sarah Blakeslee–Fine Arts
Richard Jenrette–Public Service
Elizabeth Spencer–Literature
Marshall Edgell–Science
Freda Nicholson–Public Service
1993
John Hope Franklin–Literature
Oliver Smithies–Science
Joe Cox–Fine Arts
Eric Schopler–Public Service
Billy Taylor–Fine Arts
1992
Louis D. Rubin, Jr.–Literature
John M.J. Madey–Science
William McWhorter Cochrane–Public Service
Maxwell R. Thurman–Public Service
Charles R. “Chuck” Davis–Fine Arts
1991
William J. Brown–Fine Arts
Mary Ellen Jones–Science
Robert R. Morgan–Literature
Jesse H. Meredith–Public Service
Elizabeth H. Dole–Public Service
1990
Leon Rooke–Literature
H. Keith H. Brodie–Science
Bob Timberlake–Fine Arts
Dean Wallace Colvard–Public Service
Frank H. Kenan–Public Service
1989
Loonis McGlohon–Fine Arts
Gertrude B. Elion–Science
Ronald Bayes–Literature
Maxine M. Swalin–Public Service
Roy Park–Public Service
1988
Edith London–Fine Arts
Pedro Cuatrecasas–Science
Charles Edward Eaton–Literature
William S. Lee–Public Service
David Brinkley–Public Service
1987
John T. Caldwell–Public Service
Charles Kuralt–Public Service
Maya Angelou–Literature
Robert J. Lefkowitz–Science
Harvey K. Littleton–Fine Arts
1986
Joseph M. Bryan–Public Service
Billy Graham–Public Service
A.R. Ammons–Literature
Ernest L. Eliel–Science
Arthel “Doc” Watson–Fine Arts
1985
J. Gordon Hanes, Jr.–Public Service
Wilma Dykeman–Literature
Irwin Fridovich–Science
Claude F. Howell–Fine Arts
1984
George Watts Hill–Public Service
Robert L. Hill–Science
Maud Gatewood–Fine Arts
Lee Smith–Literature
Joseph Mitchell–Literature
Andy Griffith–Fine Arts
1983
Heather Ross Miller–Literature
Frank Guthrie–Science
Mary Dalton–Fine Arts
Harry Dalton–Fine Arts
Hugh Morton–Public Service
1982
Selma Hortense Burke–Fine Arts
Nancy Winbon Chase–Public Service
Floyd W. Denny, Jr.–Science
Willie Snow Ethridge–Literature
R. Philip Hanes, Jr.–Fine Arts
1981
Adeline McCall–Fine Arts
Glen Rounds–Literature
Ralph H. Scott–Public Service
Vivian T. Stannett–Science
Tom Wicker–Literature1980
Fred Chappell–Literature
George H. Hitchings–Science
Robert Lindgren–Fine Arts
Dan K. Moore–Public Service
Jeanelle C. Moore–Public Service
1979
Archie K. Davis–Public Service
John D. deButts–Public Service
Harry Golden–Literature
Walter Gordy– Science
Sam Ragan–Fine Arts
1978
Robert Robey Garvey, Jr.–Public Service
Henry L. Kamphoefner–Fine Arts
David Coston Sabiston, Jr.–Science
Harriet L. Tynes–Public Service
Manly Wade Wellman–Literature
1977
Elizabeth Duncan Koontz–Public Service
Reginald Glennis Mitchiner–Science
Reynolds Price–Literature
Joseph Curtis Sloane–Fine Arts
Jonathan Williams–Fine Arts
1976
Romare Bearden–Fine Arts
C. Clark Cockerham–Science
Foster Fitz-Simons–Fine Arts
Juanita M. Kreps–Public Service
Richard Walser–Literature
1975
Doris W. Betts–Literature
John L. Etchells–Science
William C. Friday–Public Service
Robert Ward–Fine Arts
1974
William C. Fields–Fine Arts
Thad G. Stem, Jr.–Literature
Ellen Black Winston–Public Service
James B. Wyngaarden–Science
1973
Helen Smith Bevington–Literature
Ellis Brevier Cowling–Science
Burke Davis–Literature
Sam J. Ervin–Public Service
Kenneth Ness–Fine Arts
1972
Sidney Alderman Blackmer–Fine Arts
Edward E. David, Jr.–Science
John Ehle–Literature
William Dallas Herring–Public Service
Harold Hotelling–Science
1971
Guy Owen–Literature
James H. Semans–Fine Arts
Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans–Fine Arts
Capus Waynick–Public Service
James Edwin Webb–Public Service
1970
Philip Handler–Science
Frances Gray Patton–Literature
Henry C. Pearson–Fine Arts
Terry Sanford–Public Service
1969
Kenneth M. Brinkhous–Science
May Gordon Latham Kellenberger–Public Service
Ovid Williams Pierce–Literature
Charles W. Stanford, Jr.–Fine Arts
1968
Robert Lee Humber–Public Service
Hobson Pittman–Fine Arts
Vermont C. Royster–Literature
Charles Phillips Russell–Literature
Stanley G. Stephens–Science
1967
Albert Coates–Public Service
Jonathan Daniels–Literature
Carl W. Gottschalk–Science
Benjamin F. Swalin–Fine Arts
Hiram Houston Merritt–Science
1966
Bernice Kelly Harris–Literature
Luther H. Hodges–Public Service
A.G. Odell, Jr.–Fine Arts
Oscar K. Rice–Science
1965
Frank P. Graham–Public Service
Paul Green–Literature
Gerald W. Johnson–Literature
Hunter Johnson–Fine Arts
Frederick A. Wolf–Science
1964
John N. Couch–Science
Inglis Fletcher–Literature
John Motley Morehead–Public Service
Clarence Poe–Public Service
Francis Speight–Fine ArtsThe Department of Natural and Cultural Resources thanks
PotashCorp-Aurora [PCS Phosphate]
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr.
Thomas S. Kenan, III
• Gold •
• Diamond •
• Silver •
• Supporting Sponsor •
•Supported BY•
The NC Literary and Historical Association.
No state monies were used for this event.The NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (NCDNCR) is the state agency with a vision to be the leader in using the state’s natural and cultural resources to build the social, cultural, educational and economic future of North Carolina. Led by Secretary Susan Kluttz, NCDNCR’s mission is to improve the quality of life in our state by creating opportunities to experience excellence in the arts, history, libraries and nature in North Carolina by stimulating learning, inspiring creativity, preserving the state’s history, conserving the state’s natural heritage, encouraging recreation and cultural tourism, and promoting economic development.
Through arts efforts led by the NC Arts Council, the NC Symphony and the NC Museum of Art, NCDNCR offers the opportunity for enriching arts education for young and old alike and spurs the economic stimulus engine for our state’s communities. NCDNCR’s Divisions of State Archives, Historical Resources, State Historic Sites and State History Museums preserve, document and interpret North Carolina’s rich cultural heritage to offer experiences of learning and reflection. NCDNCR’s State Library of North Carolina is the principal library of state government and builds the capacity of all libraries in our state to develop and offer access to educational resources through traditional and online collections including genealogy; in addition, the State Library offers resources for people who are blind and have physical disabilities. The Nature component of the Department – the Aquariums, Science Museums, State Parks, Land and Water Stewardship and Zoo – enhances our connections with our environment, expands our understanding of the state’s natural resources and explores our planet’s past, present and future.
NCDNCR includes 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, two science museums, three aquariums and Jennette’s Pier, 39 state parks and recreation areas, the NC Zoo, the nation’s first state-supported Symphony Orchestra, the State Library, the State Archives, the NC Arts Council, State Historic Preservation Office and the Office of State Archaeology, along with the Division of Land and Water Stewardship.
For more information, please call (919) 807-7300 or visit www.ncdcr.gov.
About the Department

Fine Ar
tsLiteraturePublic ServiceScience NCAWARDS2016esse quam videriThe North Carolina Awards were instituted in 1961 by the North Carolina General Assembly. The Awards have been given annually since 1964 to citizens who have distinguished themselves and obtained notable accomplishments in the fields of fine arts, literature, public service and science. It is the highest civilian honor the Governor and the State of North Carolina can bestow.
The AwardJudi K. Grainger, Chairwoman
The Honorable James P. Cain
Phillip J. Kirk, Jr.
Lenard D. Moore
The Honorable Robert F. Orr
The 2016 North Carolina
Awards CommitteeTonight we celebrate the finest in North Carolina.
North Carolina has a rich history in the arts, sciences and in public service. This year’s North Carolina Award recipients join more than 50 years of individual winners who have used their talents to benefit and improve the lives of their fellow citizens. We highlight their overall contributions to advancing the quality of life in North Carolina.
Their lives personify the motto that surrounds the North Carolina medal – “Achievement is Man’s Mark of Greatness.” However, their greatest gift may be the inspiration they have given others to pursue excellence in their daily lives.
We are thankful for their leadership, creativity and innovative efforts. Join me in saluting this year’s North Carolina Award winners.
Message from the Governor52nd Annual North Carolina Awards
September 22, 2016
Welcome Secretary Susan Kluttz
NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources
Invocation Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest
Color Guard NC State Parks Honor Guard
Pledge of Allegiance Secretary Cornell Wilson, Jr.
NC Dept. of Military and Veterans Affairs
Retired Major General US Marine Corps
“The Star-Spangled Banner” Dominic Thomas
Shaw University
Dinner
North Carolina Toast Justice Barbara Jackson
North Carolina Supreme Court
Recognition of Former Award Recipients Judi Grainger, Chair
2016 NC Awards Committee
Introduction Secretary Susan Kluttz
NC Dept. of Natural and Cultural Resources
Remarks and Presentation of Awards Governor Pat McCrory
Closing Remarks Governor Pat McCrory
“God Bless America” Katherine "KK" Fritsch
St. David’s School
Master of Ceremonies for the evening is Dr. Kevin Cherry, Deputy Secretary of
Archives, History and Parks, NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.
ProgramNorth Carolina
Awards Recipients
•Literature
Joseph Bathanti
A poet is often said to be of service to his muse. Joseph Bathanti, award-winning poet and teacher for 40 years, has gone beyond to be of service to his fellow man. No cloister or ivory tower for him, he has read his work and conducted workshops in prisons, training schools, battered women’s shelters, day care centers, nursing homes, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, barns, gyms, depots and fish camps. For his dedication to the power of language, in and out of the classroom, Joseph Bathanti receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Literature.
Perhaps this should not be a surprise, since his mission was echoed in the name of the group that brought Bathanti to North Carolina: Volunteers in Service to America. VISTA assigned Bathanti in 1976 to work for 14 months for the North Carolina Department of Correction, at the prison in Huntersville. There he met his wife Joan, today the mother of their two sons Beckett and Jacob. But it was his interaction with the incarcerated that shaped his lifelong commitment to allow people to tell their stories through poetry and other forms of writing. The experience also steeled his resolve for social justice and forged his personal opposition to the death penalty.
Born in Pittsburgh to a steelworker and a seamstress, young Bathanti completed undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Pittsburgh, in time adding an MFA at Warren Wilson College. There followed a succession of teaching posts across the state, at St. Andrews Presbyterian University and at community colleges in Charlotte, Polkton, Marion and Statesville. In 2001 he assumed his present post as professor of creative writing at Appalachian State University.
His creative work has included ten volumes of poetry (the latest, The 13th Sunday After Pentecost, appeared from LSU Press this year), three novels, and a short story collection. Twice he has received the Roanoke-Chowan Award for the year’s best book of poetry by a North Carolinian. In recognition of his achievements and professional standing he was named Poet Laureate of North Carolina in 2012, serving for two years. A fellow North Carolina writer has saluted him: “He knows us, all of us, white collar, blue collar, black and white, rural and urban.”
His latest play is Deployed, a readers theater project based on the recollections of military veterans. As an extension of that work, in which he is as deeply invested as he has been for years in the work of prisoners, Bathanti recently has assumed the post of writer-in-residence at the Veterans Administration hospital in Asheville. His work with former service members with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a measure of his spirit of selflessness and compassion.
Bathanti’s most recent work of nonfiction is entitled Half of What I Say is Meaningless, a nod to Kahlil Gibran and to the Beatles’ song “Julia.” Friends, readers, and others who have had their lives touched by his work will wholeheartedly disagree.
Bathanti and his wife Joan live in Vilas and have two sons.Science
Dr. Linda S. Birnbaum
It all started with rats. A desire to understand the effect of thyroid hormones on brain development led the 14-year-old Birnbaum to act. She asked a drug company near her Teaneck, New Jersey home for rats, cages, food and thyroid hormones for a study. She completed her research with 40 rats, then won the New Jersey State Science Fair. She attended a national youth conference in Chicago and was written up in Life magazine in 1961. So began a storied career from which she never looked back. For ground-breaking work in environmental science, mentoring next generation researchers, and concern for protecting citizens from environmental hazards, Linda Birnbaum receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Science.
Birnbaum has become an internationally recognized expert in the field of environmental health and toxicology. Throughout her career she has investigated the impacts of chemicals on human health including dioxin, asbestos, flame retardants and Agent Orange. Her work has led to reductions in their use and impacted populations worldwide.
Ever an overachiever, Birnbaum studied at the University of Rochester and graduated in three years as a biology major so that she could wed her husband David. Both graduated Phi Beta Kappa. They attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She completed her doctorate in microbiology in 1972. Even in a male dominated field, she was able to combine marriage, postdoctoral studies and starting a family enabled by a flexible work schedule, and achieved some semblance of work-life balance. Following the career moves of her mathematician husband led her to various labs studying genetics and aging, then entry into the world of toxicology through PCBs and dioxin. At this point she decided her husband should follow her career.
Upon visiting her sister and brother-in-law in Research Triangle Park, she discovered the research hub of Duke, UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State, along with the Environmental Protection Agency, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and Chemical Industry Institute of Toxicology. She decided this was where she wanted to be and landed a senior fellowship with the National Toxicology Program at NIEHS in 1979. She next worked at EPA as director of toxicology.
From that auspicious start, in 2009 Linda Birnbaum became the first woman and the first toxicologist to serve as director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Only the RTP unit is located outside the Washington, DC area, and it is known as the “crown jewel” of scientific enterprise in North Carolina. NIEHS science underlies regulatory decision making in the U.S. and abroad.
Birnbaum is author or co-author of more than 900 articles, abstracts, book chapters and reports, and has been honored by many scientific professional organizations. She has studied the effect of Agent Orange on Vietnam veterans and asbestos on miners in Montana. Birnbaum has also worked with American Indian tribes in North Carolina, Alaska and Arizona.
The Office of Science and Education Diversity was created by Birnbaum at NIEHS and is one of several initiatives she enacted to engage students in science, technology, engineering and math careers. She maintains relationships with the many past NIEHS researchers and also advances preventive health care through town hall meetings in diverse communities. She believes information will lead to better decision making and better public health.
Birnbaum and her husband David live in Chapel Hill and are the parents of three children and have three grandchildren.Public Service
Robert J. Brown
“A man is known by the company he keeps,” according to one of the better known Aesop’s Fables. For Robert Brown, that company has been a widely disparate group of notables, from Nelson Mandela, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to Richard Nixon, Sammy Davis Jr. to Stedman Graham. A high achiever in the field of public relations, Brown has extended his hand since the 1950s to those needing a step up, to those looking to make a connection, to those wishing to increase their own or their institution’s fortunes. For over a half-century of work as a mediator, counselor and facilitator Robert J. Brown receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Public Service.
A native and lifelong resident of High Point, Brown attended William Penn High School (a few years after jazz saxophonist John Coltrane), North Carolina A& T State University, and Virginia Union University. His working life began in 1956, when he started a two-year stint as a policeman in his hometown. From there he commenced work as an agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, part of the U.S. Treasury Department. In 1960 Brown founded B&C Associates, in time advising major corporations such as AutoNation, General Motors, Kimberly Clark, Johnson Wax, F. W. Woolworth, Sara Lee and Nabisco. He also served as a member of the corporate plans board of Carl Byoir and Associates, which for many years was the largest public relations firm in the world.
In 1968 he took leave from his company to serve as Special Assistant to newly-elected President Richard M. Nixon. In the White House his duties included responsibility for community relations, civil rights and emergency preparedness. Brown developed the U.S. Minority Business Enterprise Program and chaired the White House Task Force on Small Towns. Shortly before teaming with President Nixon, Brown, who had traveled with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., advised the civil rights leader’s widow Coretta Scott King after her husband’s assassination, on setting up an office. Brown also worked closely with Whitney Young of the National Urban League.
A highlight of Brown’s life came on May 8, 1987, when he met for two hours with Nelson Mandela, incarcerated at that time in Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town, South Africa. To that point, Mandela’s visitors had been very few, principally his wife Winnie and family members. Subsequently, Brown assisted the Mandelas in gaining admission for their daughter and son-in-law to Boston University, where Brown was a trustee. Brown’s many visits to Africa led him to found in 1993 BookSmart Foundation, which since has distributed over five million books to South Africa, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia and other nations.
Robert Brown has served many schools as trustee, among them Boston University, Livingstone College, NC Central University, Guilford College, and Winston-Salem State University. In addition, he has served on the UNC Board of Governors and was president of the North Carolina Railroad Company from 1985 to 1990. He is the recipient of twelve honorary doctorates.
Brown and his wife Lavern live in High Point. Public Service
James C. Gardner
Known for his courage and conviction in his varied pursuits in business, politics and public service, Jim Gardner has worn many hats in his lifetime. From launching the Hardee’s hamburger chain to bringing professional basketball to North Carolina to expanding the two-party political system in eastern NC to spearheading campaigns against drugs and underage drinking, Gardner’s successes and accomplishments are many. For more than 50 years of dedication to the people of our state, James C. Gardner receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Public Service.
After attending NC State University and serving in the U.S. Army, Gardner returned home to Rocky Mount to join his father’s business, Gardner Dairy Products. In 1961, Gardner and his friend Leonard Rawls joined Wilber Hardee to launch Hardee’s, a successful hamburger restaurant. The venture took off and within a few years Gardner was executive vice president of Hardee’s Food Systems. As a local leader, he required his executives to live in Rocky Mount, building hometown pride and community spirit.
Inspired by a speech by Senator Barry Goldwater, Gardner changed his party affiliation to Republican in a heavily Democratic area and almost immediately was tapped to be the Nash County party chairman. He was named chairman of the state Republican Party the following year. Gardner first made a splash when he ran for Congress in 1964, and nearly defeated the 30-year Democratic incumbent. In the next election, Gardner was elected to represent the Fourth Congressional District in the U.S. House with a shocking 13-point margin of victory, foreshadowing the resurgence of the Grand Old Party in North Carolina.
In 1988, Gardner became lieutenant governor, the first Republican to be elected to the office in the twentieth century. A lifelong opponent of drug and alcohol abuse, as lieutenant governor, he led Gov. Jim Martin’s North Carolina Drug Cabinet. Gardner has been called one of the “Four Jims” of the North Carolina Republican establishment, the others being former Governors Holshouser and Martin and former U.S. Sen. Jim Broyhill.
An adventuresome businessman, Gardner purchased the franchise rights of the Houston Mavericks, an American Basketball Association team, and brought professional basketball to North Carolina in 1969 and called them the Carolina Cougars. The Cougars were based in Greensboro, but played at various arenas around the state. Their roster was filled with former North Carolina college players and stars, delighting fans. Gardner also served as President and Commissioner of the American Basketball League.
In 2005, Gardner was inducted into the Twin County Museum and Hall of Fame whose mission is ‘to celebrate the history, culture, people, and accomplishments of Nash and Edgecombe Counties.’ Gardner has been named Tarheel of the Week and Outstanding Young Man of the South. In 2013, he served as master of ceremonies during Governor Pat McCrory’s inauguration.
As a respected elder statesman, Gardner was the ideal choice of Governor McCrory to oversee the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission in 2013. He continues to lead the commission with vision and integrity. He actively directs the bold and provocative “Talk it Out” campaign, designed to encourage parents to talk with their children about the dangers of drinking.
Jim Gardner and his wife Marie live in Rocky Mount. They have three children and nine grandchildren.Science
Dr. Paul L. Modrich
Paul Modrich was born in 1946 in Raton, New Mexico. He was educated in the local schools as well as in the natural world that surrounded him in childhood. In 1963 his father, a high school biology teacher, told his son that he “should learn about this DNA stuff.” Modrich went on to study biology at MIT, and then to Stanford for his Ph.D. in biochemistry. His postdoctoral study of enzymes and their effects on DNA was completed at Harvard. In 1976 Modrich arrived at Duke University, where he remains the James B. Duke Professor of Biochemistry. In 1994 he became an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His publications and career honors are many.
The study of DNA was new science when Modrich entered college. Although discovered by a French researcher in the late 1860s, it was nearly 100 years later in 1950 that American biologist James Watson and English physicist Francis Crick concluded that DNA was a three-dimensional double helix. As an undergraduate, Modrich first studied the genetics of viruses that infect bacteria. He showed that ligase is essential for the microbe Escherichia coli. The enzyme seal breaks that occur in one strand of the double helix is essential for DNA replication, repair and recombination.
DNA replication is very accurate, but about one mistake occurs for every 10 million DNA copies. Modrich identified the proteins at work in what is called the mismatch repair (MMR) system, a proofreading mechanism in DNA that reduces the errors by a factor of a thousand. In healthy cells, approximately one mutation occurs per cell division. Without MMR the number increases to about 1,000. This research has helped understand the workings of colon cancer and has implications for many other tumors and diseases.
Modrich counts many friends in the scientific world, including co-recipient Aziz Sancar, with whom he occasionally shares research.
Modrich and his wife, Vickers Burdett, live in rural Orange County with their dog Dover. They have two grown children.
As cells divide, an organism’s DNA is copied over and over again. During the process, DNA is subjected to damaging radiation and reactive molecules which can cause random errors in replication. Cells however, maintain a “tool box” for repairing themselves, keeping bacteria and humans, alike, from descending into chemical instability. For their ground-breaking work in mapping and explaining how a cell repairs its DNA in order to prevent errors in genetic information, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar receive the 2016 North Carolina Award for Science.Science
Dr. Aziz Sancar
Aziz Sancar was born in 1946 in Savur, Turkey. Although his parents were illiterate, they emphasized education. He excelled in school and in soccer, but chose to focus on school. He studied medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Istanbul University and was a doctor for a year and a half before coming to the United States on scholarship to study biochemistry at Johns Hopkins University. He was accepted at the University of Texas at Dallas and earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology. He later came to UNC-Chapel Hill, and is the Sarah Graham Kenan Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Sancar’s study in Texas opened for him new research in the universe of DNA repair. He found that bacteria recovered from deadly doses of ultraviolet radiation when exposed to blue light. Sancar in 1976 cloned the gene for the enzyme photolyase, which repairs the UV damaged DNA in bacteria. He was the first scientist east of the Rocky Mountains to clone a gene. He also competed for lab time with fellow doctoral student Gwendolyn Boles, whom he eventually married. While a lab technician at Yale University’s School of Medicine, he deciphered the mechanism of another DNA enzyme system called nucleotide excision repair.
UNC was the only school to offer Sancar a postdoctoral position and also offer a position to his wife. In his lab his ideas on excision repair were validated. Aside from his work in DNA repair, Sancar has also identified one of four genes that control a mammal’s circadian, or biological, clock.
Sancar’s current work seeks to further understand excision repair and define connections between DNA excision repair, DNA damage checkpoints and the circadian clock. It has implications for a host of ills and won him many professional honors.
In 2009 Sancar and his wife launched the Aziz and Gwen Sancar Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes Turkish culture and supports Turkish students in the United States. He is deeply devoted to mentoring students from his homeland, the United States and other nations.
Although their research areas are different, Paul Modrich and Aziz Sancar have had a profound impact on genetic research.
Sancar and his wife Gwen live in Chapel Hill.
Modrich and Sancar, together with their colleague Tomas Lindahl of Cancer Research UK’s Clare Laboratory, received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The three scientists discovered how replication errors in DNA, caused by exposure to toxic substances such as ultraviolet radiation and cigarette smoke, are repaired. Their work has also shown that when the repair systems fail, a person may get cancer. Sir Martyn Poliakoff, vice president of the Royal Society said of the research, “Understanding the ways in which DNA repairs itself is fundamental to our understanding of inherited genetic disorders and of diseases like cancer.”Fine Arts
Dr. Assad Meymandi
Dr. Assad Meymandi, psychiatrist, scholar, polymath and patriot, has been generous with his gifts. A century ago, captains of industry such as Rockefeller and Carnegie set the philanthropic model. Today, Raleigh has its own public-spirited practitioner of the art of charitable giving. For the transformative roles he has played for the North Carolina Symphony and North Carolina Museum of Art, coupled with his resolute advocacy for the arts and humanities, Assad Meymandi receives the 2016 North Carolina Award for Fine Arts.
Meymandi’s story begins in Kerman, Persia (present-day Iran), where his mother Kobra inculcated in her youngest of nine children an appreciation for music, literature and culture. By the age of five, Meymandi spoke Farsi, French, Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic – the language of Jesus. The budding scholar attended the French Jesuit school in Tehran. He came to America in 1955 to study medicine. He completed premed at Arizona State University in 1958 and received his Doctor of Medicine degree (MD) from George Washington University in 1962. After his internship, Meymandi received his psychiatric residency training at Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh from 1963 to 1966. He then served as a psychiatrist-director at Cumberland County Mental Health Center. Next, he was vice-chief, then chief of staff at Cape Fear Valley Medical Center in Fayetteville. In time, he also acquired doctorates in biochemistry and philosophy, along with several honorary Doctorate of Science degrees, the latest in 2015. He holds an adjunct professorship of psychiatry at the UNC School of Medicine, where in 2003 he endowed the Dr. Assad Meymandi Distinguished Chair of Psychiatry.
Raleigh has been the beneficiary of much of Dr. Meymandi’s philanthropy. Indeed, he dreams of transforming the city into a modern version of sixteenth-century Florence – a center for art, music, literature and learning. Toward that end, he funded the state-of-the-art, 1,800-seat concert hall that serves the North Carolina Symphony and bears his mother’s name. At the North Carolina Museum of Art, he established the Meymandi Exhibition Center, the Museum’s largest special exhibition space, named for his father. One dream remains, to build an opera house as a home for the NC Opera on the grounds of the former Dix Hospital where he began his career a half-century ago. He has also pledged funding toward converting this land into a city park.
In Iran, Meymandi funded an elementary school and contributed funding to the Rudaki Symphony Hall in Tehran. At the National Humanities Center in Research Triangle Park, he funded a fellowship to integrate study of the humanities with basic sciences. It brings together leaders in the arts and sciences, such as E.O. Wilson and Oliver Sacks, and Nobel Laureates including Wole Soyinka and Sir Paul Nurse. In memory of his late wife, Meymandi established the Patricia Schmidt Meymandi Nursing Scholarship. At St. Mary’s School, he has sponsored music programs and at Cherry Hill in Warren County, an annual concert.
Meymandi is a blogger, sharing with friends his “Monday Musings.” On July 4, 2015, he wrote, “There is no place on earth like America, where the beacon of freedom continues to shine, where the flame of liberty continues to illuminate the landscape of humanity, where the rule of law and not the whim of Shahs, Mullahs and dictators is supreme. God Bless America.”
Assad Meymandi is the father of four children and has five grandchildren. He and his wife Emily live in Raleigh. Past Recipients
2015
Anthony S. Abbott–Literature
Anthony Atala, MD–Science
Senator James T. Broyhill–Public Service
A. Everette James, Jr., MD–Fine Arts
Howard N. Lee–Public Service
Patricia McBride–Fine Arts
2014
Betsy Bennett–Public Service
Robert A. Ingram–Public Service
Lenard D. Moore–Literature
Jagdish (Jay) Narayan–Science
Alan Shapiro–Literature
Ira David Wood III–Fine Arts
2013
Myron S. Cohen–Science
John E. Cram–Fine Arts
John M. H. Hart Jr.–Literature
Phillip J. Kirk Jr.–Public Service
John Harding Lucas–Public Service
Walt Wolfram–Public Service
2012
B. Jayant Baliga–Science
Gary Neil Carden–Literature
Lou Donaldson–Fine Arts
Janice H. Faulkner–Public Service
Bonnie McElveen-Hunter–Public Service
Thomas H. Sayre–Fine Arts
2011
Charles E. Hamner–Public Service
H. Martin Lancaster–Public Service
Trudy F. C. Mackay–Science
Branford Marsalis–Fine Arts
Ron Rash–Literature
Vollis Simpson–Fine Arts
2010
F. Ivy Carroll–Science
Robert W. Ebendorf–Fine Arts
R. Michael Leonard–Public Service
Margaret S. “Tog” Newman–Public Service
Donald Sultan–Fine Arts
Carole Boston Weatherford–Literature
2009
Gerald W. Barrax–Literature
Dr. Joseph M. DeSimone–Science
Betty Ray McCain–Public Service
Hugh L. McColl, Jr.–Public Service
Mark Peiser–Fine Arts
Bo Thorp–Fine Arts
2008
Maurice S. Brookhart–Science
Charles Frazier–Literature
Gerald Freedman–Fine Arts
Ann Goodnight–Public Service
Margaret Maron–Literature
James G. Martin–Public Service
Alexander M. Rivera, Jr.–Fine Arts
Dean Smith–Public Service
Fred and Alice Stanback–Public Service
2007
Viney P. Aneja–Science
Jerry C. Cashion–Public Service
Jan Davidson–Fine Arts
Rosemary Harris Ehle–Fine Arts
Henry E. Frye–Public Service
William E. Leuchtenburg–Literature
Burley B. Mitchell, Jr.–Public Service
Charlie Rose–Public Service
Darrel W. Stafford–Science
2006
Thomas K. Hearn, Jr.–Public Service
James E. Holshouser, Jr.–Public Service
Michael Fleming Parker–Literature
Roy Parker, Jr.–Public Service
Charles A. Sanders–Science
William T. Williams–Fine Arts
Emily Herring Wilson–Literature
2005
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr.–Public Service
Betty Debnam Hunt–Public Service
Randall Kenan–Literature
Thomas Willis Lambeth–Public Service
Bland Simpson–Fine Arts
Mansukh C. Wani–Science
2004
Voit Gilmore–Public Service
Walter J. Harrelson–Literature
William Ivey long–Fine Arts
Elizabeth Matheson–Fine Arts
Penelope Niven–Literature
LeRoy T. Walker–Public Service
Annie Louise Wilkerson–Science
2003
Etta Baker–Fine Arts
Jaki Shelton Green–Literature
Frank Borden Hanes–Public Service
James Baxter Hunt, Jr.–Public Service
Mary Ann Scherr–Fine Arts
William Thornton–Science
2002
William G. Anlyan–Science
Cynthia Bringle–Fine Arts
Julius L. Chambers–Public Service
Martha Nell Hardy–Fine Arts
H.G. Jones–Public Service
Romulus Linney–Literature
Edwin Graves Wilson–Public Service
2001
Kathryn Stripling Byer–Literature
W.W. Finlator–Public Service
Robert B. Jordan, III–Public Service
Royce W. Murray–Science
Arthur Smith–Fine Arts
Shelby Stephenson–Literature2000
Henry Bowers–Public Service
Harlan E. Boyles–Public Service
S. Tucker Cooke–Fine Arts
William T. Fletcher–Science
James F. Goodmon–Public Service
William S. Powell–Literature
1999
Frank Arthur Daniels, Jr.–Public Service
Julia Jones Daniels–Public Service
Knut Schmidt-Nielsen–Science
Robert G. Parr–Science
Allan Gurganus–Literature
Jill McCorkle–Literature
Frank L. Horton–Fine Arts
Herb Jackson–Fine Arts
Henry H. Shelton–Public Service
1998
L. Richardson Preyer–Public Service
Emily Harris Preyer–Public Service
Kaye Gibbons–Literature
Robert W. Gray–Fine Arts
Martin Rodbell–Science
Marvin Saltzman–Fine Arts
James V. Taylor–Fine Arts
1997
Thomas S. Kenan, III–Public Service
M. Mellanay Delhom–Fine Arts
Robert Ian Bruck–Science
Elna B. Spaulding–Public Service
Clyde Edgerton–Literature
1996
Robert W. Scott–Public Service
Martha Clampitt McKay–Public Service
John L. Sanders–Public Service
Betty Adcock–Literature
Joseph S. Pagano–Science
Joanne M. Bath–Fine Arts
1995
Banks C. Talley, Jr.–Public Service
John S. Mayo–Science
John Biggers–Fine Arts
Clyde Hutchison, III–Science
James Applewhite–Literature
Kenneth Noland–Fine Arts
1994
Sarah Blakeslee–Fine Arts
Richard Jenrette–Public Service
Elizabeth Spencer–Literature
Marshall Edgell–Science
Freda Nicholson–Public Service
1993
John Hope Franklin–Literature
Oliver Smithies–Science
Joe Cox–Fine Arts
Eric Schopler–Public Service
Billy Taylor–Fine Arts
1992
Louis D. Rubin, Jr.–Literature
John M.J. Madey–Science
William McWhorter Cochrane–Public Service
Maxwell R. Thurman–Public Service
Charles R. “Chuck” Davis–Fine Arts
1991
William J. Brown–Fine Arts
Mary Ellen Jones–Science
Robert R. Morgan–Literature
Jesse H. Meredith–Public Service
Elizabeth H. Dole–Public Service
1990
Leon Rooke–Literature
H. Keith H. Brodie–Science
Bob Timberlake–Fine Arts
Dean Wallace Colvard–Public Service
Frank H. Kenan–Public Service
1989
Loonis McGlohon–Fine Arts
Gertrude B. Elion–Science
Ronald Bayes–Literature
Maxine M. Swalin–Public Service
Roy Park–Public Service
1988
Edith London–Fine Arts
Pedro Cuatrecasas–Science
Charles Edward Eaton–Literature
William S. Lee–Public Service
David Brinkley–Public Service
1987
John T. Caldwell–Public Service
Charles Kuralt–Public Service
Maya Angelou–Literature
Robert J. Lefkowitz–Science
Harvey K. Littleton–Fine Arts
1986
Joseph M. Bryan–Public Service
Billy Graham–Public Service
A.R. Ammons–Literature
Ernest L. Eliel–Science
Arthel “Doc” Watson–Fine Arts
1985
J. Gordon Hanes, Jr.–Public Service
Wilma Dykeman–Literature
Irwin Fridovich–Science
Claude F. Howell–Fine Arts
1984
George Watts Hill–Public Service
Robert L. Hill–Science
Maud Gatewood–Fine Arts
Lee Smith–Literature
Joseph Mitchell–Literature
Andy Griffith–Fine Arts
1983
Heather Ross Miller–Literature
Frank Guthrie–Science
Mary Dalton–Fine Arts
Harry Dalton–Fine Arts
Hugh Morton–Public Service
1982
Selma Hortense Burke–Fine Arts
Nancy Winbon Chase–Public Service
Floyd W. Denny, Jr.–Science
Willie Snow Ethridge–Literature
R. Philip Hanes, Jr.–Fine Arts
1981
Adeline McCall–Fine Arts
Glen Rounds–Literature
Ralph H. Scott–Public Service
Vivian T. Stannett–Science
Tom Wicker–Literature1980
Fred Chappell–Literature
George H. Hitchings–Science
Robert Lindgren–Fine Arts
Dan K. Moore–Public Service
Jeanelle C. Moore–Public Service
1979
Archie K. Davis–Public Service
John D. deButts–Public Service
Harry Golden–Literature
Walter Gordy– Science
Sam Ragan–Fine Arts
1978
Robert Robey Garvey, Jr.–Public Service
Henry L. Kamphoefner–Fine Arts
David Coston Sabiston, Jr.–Science
Harriet L. Tynes–Public Service
Manly Wade Wellman–Literature
1977
Elizabeth Duncan Koontz–Public Service
Reginald Glennis Mitchiner–Science
Reynolds Price–Literature
Joseph Curtis Sloane–Fine Arts
Jonathan Williams–Fine Arts
1976
Romare Bearden–Fine Arts
C. Clark Cockerham–Science
Foster Fitz-Simons–Fine Arts
Juanita M. Kreps–Public Service
Richard Walser–Literature
1975
Doris W. Betts–Literature
John L. Etchells–Science
William C. Friday–Public Service
Robert Ward–Fine Arts
1974
William C. Fields–Fine Arts
Thad G. Stem, Jr.–Literature
Ellen Black Winston–Public Service
James B. Wyngaarden–Science
1973
Helen Smith Bevington–Literature
Ellis Brevier Cowling–Science
Burke Davis–Literature
Sam J. Ervin–Public Service
Kenneth Ness–Fine Arts
1972
Sidney Alderman Blackmer–Fine Arts
Edward E. David, Jr.–Science
John Ehle–Literature
William Dallas Herring–Public Service
Harold Hotelling–Science
1971
Guy Owen–Literature
James H. Semans–Fine Arts
Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans–Fine Arts
Capus Waynick–Public Service
James Edwin Webb–Public Service
1970
Philip Handler–Science
Frances Gray Patton–Literature
Henry C. Pearson–Fine Arts
Terry Sanford–Public Service
1969
Kenneth M. Brinkhous–Science
May Gordon Latham Kellenberger–Public Service
Ovid Williams Pierce–Literature
Charles W. Stanford, Jr.–Fine Arts
1968
Robert Lee Humber–Public Service
Hobson Pittman–Fine Arts
Vermont C. Royster–Literature
Charles Phillips Russell–Literature
Stanley G. Stephens–Science
1967
Albert Coates–Public Service
Jonathan Daniels–Literature
Carl W. Gottschalk–Science
Benjamin F. Swalin–Fine Arts
Hiram Houston Merritt–Science
1966
Bernice Kelly Harris–Literature
Luther H. Hodges–Public Service
A.G. Odell, Jr.–Fine Arts
Oscar K. Rice–Science
1965
Frank P. Graham–Public Service
Paul Green–Literature
Gerald W. Johnson–Literature
Hunter Johnson–Fine Arts
Frederick A. Wolf–Science
1964
John N. Couch–Science
Inglis Fletcher–Literature
John Motley Morehead–Public Service
Clarence Poe–Public Service
Francis Speight–Fine ArtsThe Department of Natural and Cultural Resources thanks
PotashCorp-Aurora [PCS Phosphate]
Joseph M. Bryan, Jr.
Thomas S. Kenan, III
• Gold •
• Diamond •
• Silver •
• Supporting Sponsor •
•Supported BY•
The NC Literary and Historical Association.
No state monies were used for this event.The NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources (NCDNCR) is the state agency with a vision to be the leader in using the state’s natural and cultural resources to build the social, cultural, educational and economic future of North Carolina. Led by Secretary Susan Kluttz, NCDNCR’s mission is to improve the quality of life in our state by creating opportunities to experience excellence in the arts, history, libraries and nature in North Carolina by stimulating learning, inspiring creativity, preserving the state’s history, conserving the state’s natural heritage, encouraging recreation and cultural tourism, and promoting economic development.
Through arts efforts led by the NC Arts Council, the NC Symphony and the NC Museum of Art, NCDNCR offers the opportunity for enriching arts education for young and old alike and spurs the economic stimulus engine for our state’s communities. NCDNCR’s Divisions of State Archives, Historical Resources, State Historic Sites and State History Museums preserve, document and interpret North Carolina’s rich cultural heritage to offer experiences of learning and reflection. NCDNCR’s State Library of North Carolina is the principal library of state government and builds the capacity of all libraries in our state to develop and offer access to educational resources through traditional and online collections including genealogy; in addition, the State Library offers resources for people who are blind and have physical disabilities. The Nature component of the Department – the Aquariums, Science Museums, State Parks, Land and Water Stewardship and Zoo – enhances our connections with our environment, expands our understanding of the state’s natural resources and explores our planet’s past, present and future.
NCDNCR includes 27 historic sites, seven history museums, two art museums, two science museums, three aquariums and Jennette’s Pier, 39 state parks and recreation areas, the NC Zoo, the nation’s first state-supported Symphony Orchestra, the State Library, the State Archives, the NC Arts Council, State Historic Preservation Office and the Office of State Archaeology, along with the Division of Land and Water Stewardship.
For more information, please call (919) 807-7300 or visit www.ncdcr.gov.
About the Department